Electric Chair: influence on moral thought and scientific debate - Introduction
- History
- War of Currents
- Social Effects
- Moral Effects
- Conclusion
Introduction A
Old Sparky- Sing Sing Prison, Ossining, New York
ll across time, murderers, thieves, and sometimes political rivals, were executed for their crimes. In Europe, in the Middle Ages, criminals were killed in some interesting ways, some were burned at the stake, others were stretched on the wheel, while many were impaled, with all being left to die. For the most part, the punishment fit the crime: the more severe the crime, the more physically enduring and painful the punishment. Then the invention of the guillotine revolutionized these outdated methods and brought efficient and quick deaths to all criminals. The guillotine made punishment efficient and “clean” there was no longer any need for extremely painful and gory deaths. In the same way, the electric chair replaced the hangman’s noose in America and across the world. Since at the time technology was looked as the solution to quell people’s fears, the electric chair not only revolutionized the efficient bloodless killing methods for capital punishment but also it altered the moral perception on acceptable uses of capital punishment by swaying the debate of AC vs. DC current war via bombardment of the public with extravagant experiments and outrageous media claims.
History of Invention
Back in the late 1700s and early 1800s, the French peasants and nobility were growing discontented and thus the French Revolution was born. Trying to counteract any sort of upheaval, King Louis XVI banned the use of the breaking wheel, the primary vehicle of torture and death in France at the time. King Louis XVI charted the construction of a new vehicle of punishment, one that would appease his subjects and thus the guillotine was born. Such device overthrew the existing forms of hanging, beheading with sword or axe, and burning, as well as others. With quick and standardized strokes, the guillotine guaranteed immediate death without risk of suffocation or excessive bleeding. And since peasants would be given the same immediate death as nobility, a sense of equality was assured and the people were satisfied with the painless death.
In the same way, the electric chair toppled the hangman’s noose in America. Well into the late 1800s, death by hanging on the gallows was the preferred method of execution. The populace at the time would gather and watch these public executions and the morbid would make a picnic out of the event. As such, it became the icon of executions and can even be seen today in practically every spaghetti western! There were many variations made to the gallows, the short drop, standard drop, and the long drop, with each successive type improving upon the last. There was room for improvement because the deaths were inconsistent; sometimes a person would be decapitated and sometimes their necks would not break and they would die by asphyxiation. So just like the guillotine in medieval Europe, the gallows needed a technological update. In comes Alfred P. Southwick, a dentist from Buffalo. He saw an inebriated fellow touch a live electric generator and found that electricity can be used for quick, painless deaths. Being a dentist and used to having people sit in a dentist’s chair, his device combined the ease of sitting in a chair with the necessary high voltage and lo! the electric chair was born. After going through the necessary qualifications, tests, and legalities, the electric chair replaced the hangman’s noose in 1889.
Use in the War of Current At the time, a war of electricity was being fought between Thomas Edison, the proponent of direct current, and George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla, the proponents of alternating current. In 1878, Edison created the Edison Electric Light Company in New York City
George Westinghouse
with the idea to deliver electric power to all. After a number of setbacks, he opened the Pearl Street Station in 1880, which was the first commercial DC generator in America. Of the many reasons Edison chose DC power, the unavailability of an efficient AC motor was central. With the development of an efficient AC motor by Nikola Tesla, one of Edison’s former lab technicians, and the backing of a financial powerhouse, George Westinghouse, a war of current was born. Edison carried out a vivid campaign to discourage the use of alternating current which included public animal killings, the spread of information on fatal AC accidents, and lobbyists in state legislature for discouraging AC usage.
At the time, Southwick was trying to finalize plans for his new invention, the electric chair. He needed some source of electricity to properly punish criminals. Both Westinghouse and Edison did not want their current, AC and DC respectively, to be associated with the new method of capital punishment. But with a little trickery, Edison was able to get an AC motor into the final design for the electric chair. Edison also conducted a series of public animal killings by electrocution using AC current. The populace, seeing the deadly effects of electrocution on animals, found the electric chair to be a suitable replacement for the hangman’s noose. In fact once the first switch was thrown, Southwick said "We live in a higher civilization from this day on." This statement summed up the thoughts of the majority of the population about the electric chair.
Social Effects
Due in part to the public electrocutions conducted by Edison, the electric chair influenced America on a social level. The publicity generated by Edison’s animal electrocutions and the installation of the electric chair as primary method of killing attracted major media attention as well as some strange attraction. In 1884, at the takeoff of the electric chair, a
George Westinghouse
well educated Philadelphia man who suffered a financial disaster offered, for a sum of $5000, to become a human guinea pig for the first power-up of the electric chair. Needless to say that his offer was not taken, but the electric chair was influencing the way American grew. Society praised the electric chair as being a technological revolution to the capital punishment field. They saw capital punishment as no longer being cruel and unusual, but instead painless and guilt-free.
A good number of years after the electric chairs advent and its rise to superiority, in 1965, Andy Warhol, a famous painter, printer, and filmmaker, introduced some artwork as a catalyst to generate dialogue on the capital punishment debate. Warhol used a photograph of the infamous electric chair at Sing Sing prison in New York as a basis and changed the background color scheme. This chair claimed the lives of many notables, including in 1899, the first woman electrocuted, Martha Place, as well as in 1928 the only known person to be photographed while being electrocuted, Ruth Snyder.
Moral Effects
Now granted that at first the electric chair was heralded as the technology that could change society, but after numerous years of service and a numerous botched electrocutions, in the 1930s and on, the public turned on the electric chair. A debate ensued not about the method of execution, but of the validity of execution. The smoldering corpses of bungled electrocutions provided vivid concrete examples of the horrors of capital punishment. A debate would be formed over the necessity of capital punishment, both legally and morally, all because of the quickness of the electric chair. Since the late 1800s, the attitude of the populace has changed. Some people, especially the deeply religious and the religious institutions, could not allow themselves to take the life of another human being. No matter the crime, death was not an option. No one deserved to be burned alive by a botched electrocution, or have to be electrocuted twice by untrained wardens.
Ruth Snyder – Jan 12, 1928
Granted the capital punishment debate began way back in the Enlightenment, while back then their voice was small, now it had snowballed into a louder voice. Those who opposed capital punishment back in the day were largely ignored for monarchs ruled as they saw fit. But with the world developing as more of a global entity, communication became widespread and instantaneous. Newspapers allowed for vivid depictions of electrocution, specifically the death of Ruth Snyder, in which a newspaper reporter smuggled a camera into the death chamber and snapped a photo of Ruth being electrocuted and was subsequently put on the front page the following day. Capital punishment split the populace into two schools of thought: one felt that killing people was morally wrong and should never be done while the other accepted capital punishment as a valid deterrent to devious crime.
Conclusion
In the 1960s, many states passed legislation barring the use of the electric chair and replacing it with lethal injection with the exception of a few states (Florida, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Virginia) who allow death by electrocution as a secondary measure. Most states removed the electric chair from their prisons for two main reasons. The first being that there were many problems with the consistency of death by the chairs and the second being that more and more the populace did not want the electric chair to torture any more victims. The invention that was heralded as humane at conception became synonymous with torture and misuse. Just like France did in 1981 when they abolished the use of the guillotine, Americans wanted the same done with not only the electric chair but also the death penalty. Without the electric chair, the debate over capital punishment would not be as important as it is today.
Secondary: "Harold P. Brown and the Executioner's Current: An Incident in the AC-DC Controversy," Business History Review 32 (1958): 143–65
Walter G. Vincenti, "The Technical Shaping of Technology: Real-World Constraints and Technical Logic in Edison's Electrical Lighting System," Social Studies of Science 25 (Aug. 1995): 553–74
McNichol, Tom. AC/DC The Savage Tale of the First Standards War. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006.
Brandon, Craig. The Electric Chair An Unnatural American History. Boston: McFarland & Company, 1999.
Essig, Mark. Edison & the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death. United States: Walker & Company, 2005.
Richard., Moran,. Executioner's current Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and the invention of the electric chair. New York: A.A. Knopf, 2002.
Reference: "Alfred P. Southwick, MDS, DDS: dental practitioner, educator and originator of electrical executions." PubMD.gov. Nov. 2000. U.S. National Library of Medicine. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11806253?dopt=Abstract>.
- Introduction
- History
- War of Currents
- Social Effects
- Moral Effects
- Conclusion
Introduction
A
History of Invention
Back in the late 1700s and early 1800s, the French peasants and nobility were growing discontented and thus the French Revolution was born. Trying to counteract any sort of upheaval, King Louis XVI banned the use of the breaking wheel, the primary vehicle of torture and death in France at the time. King Louis XVI charted the construction of a new vehicle of punishment, one that would appease his subjects and thus the guillotine was born. Such device overthrew the existing forms of hanging, beheading with sword or axe, and burning, as well as others. With quick and standardized strokes, the guillotine guaranteed immediate death without risk of suffocation or excessive bleeding. And since peasants would be given the same immediate death as nobility, a sense of equality was assured and the people were satisfied with the painless death.
In the same way, the electric chair toppled the hangman’s noose in America. Well into the late 1800s, death by hanging on the gallows was the preferred method of execution. The populace at the time would gather and watch these public executions and the morbid would make a picnic out of the event. As such, it became the icon of executions and can even be seen today in practically every spaghetti western! There were many variations made to the gallows, the short drop, standard drop, and the long drop, with each successive type improving upon the last. There was room for improvement because the deaths were inconsistent; sometimes a person would be decapitated and sometimes their necks would not break and they would die by asphyxiation. So just like the guillotine in medieval Europe, the gallows needed a technological update. In comes Alfred P. Southwick, a dentist from Buffalo. He saw an inebriated fellow touch a live electric generator and found that electricity can be used for quick, painless deaths. Being a dentist and used to having people sit in a dentist’s chair, his device combined the ease of sitting in a chair with the necessary high voltage and lo! the electric chair was born. After going through the necessary qualifications, tests, and legalities, the electric chair replaced the hangman’s noose in 1889.
Use in the War of Current
At the time, a war of electricity was being fought between Thomas Edison, the proponent of direct current, and George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla, the proponents of alternating current. In 1878, Edison created the Edison Electric Light Company in New York City
At the time, Southwick was trying to finalize plans for his new invention, the electric chair. He needed some source of electricity to properly punish criminals. Both Westinghouse and Edison did not want their current, AC and DC respectively, to be associated with the new method of capital punishment. But with a little trickery, Edison was able to get an AC motor into the final design for the electric chair. Edison also conducted a series of public animal killings by electrocution using AC current. The populace, seeing the deadly effects of electrocution on animals, found the electric chair to be a suitable replacement for the hangman’s noose. In fact once the first switch was thrown, Southwick said "We live in a higher civilization from this day on." This statement summed up the thoughts of the majority of the population about the electric chair.
Social Effects
Due in part to the public electrocutions conducted by Edison, the electric chair influenced America on a social level. The publicity generated by Edison’s animal electrocutions and the installation of the electric chair as primary method of killing attracted major media attention as well as some strange attraction. In 1884, at the takeoff of the electric chair, a
A good number of years after the electric chairs advent and its rise to superiority, in 1965, Andy Warhol, a famous painter, printer, and filmmaker, introduced some artwork as a catalyst to generate dialogue on the capital punishment debate. Warhol used a photograph of the infamous electric chair at Sing Sing prison in New York as a basis and changed the background color scheme. This chair claimed the lives of many notables, including in 1899, the first woman electrocuted, Martha Place, as well as in 1928 the only known person to be photographed while being electrocuted, Ruth Snyder.
Moral Effects
Now granted that at first the electric chair was heralded as the technology that could change society, but after numerous years of service and a numerous botched electrocutions, in the 1930s and on, the public turned on the electric chair. A debate ensued not about the method of execution, but of the validity of execution. The smoldering corpses of bungled electrocutions provided vivid concrete examples of the horrors of capital punishment. A debate would be formed over the necessity of capital punishment, both legally and morally, all because of the quickness of the electric chair. Since the late 1800s, the attitude of the populace has changed. Some people, especially the deeply religious and the religious institutions, could not allow themselves to take the life of another human being. No matter the crime, death was not an option. No one deserved to be burned alive by a botched electrocution, or have to be electrocuted twice by untrained wardens.
Conclusion
In the 1960s, many states passed legislation barring the use of the electric chair and replacing it with lethal injection with the exception of a few states (Florida, South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Virginia) who allow death by electrocution as a secondary measure. Most states removed the electric chair from their prisons for two main reasons. The first being that there were many problems with the consistency of death by the chairs and the second being that more and more the populace did not want the electric chair to torture any more victims. The invention that was heralded as humane at conception became synonymous with torture and misuse. Just like France did in 1981 when they abolished the use of the guillotine, Americans wanted the same done with not only the electric chair but also the death penalty. Without the electric chair, the debate over capital punishment would not be as important as it is today.
Works Cited
Primary:
"Far Worse Than Hanging." New York Times 7 Aug. 1890, Front Page sec.: 1-2. 1 June 2009 <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E06E4D9133BE533A25754C0A96E9C94619ED7CF&scp=3&sq=august%207%201890&st=cse>.
Secondary:
"Harold P. Brown and the Executioner's Current: An Incident in the AC-DC Controversy," Business History Review 32 (1958): 143–65
Walter G. Vincenti, "The Technical Shaping of Technology: Real-World Constraints and Technical Logic in Edison's Electrical Lighting System," Social Studies of Science 25 (Aug. 1995): 553–74
McNichol, Tom. AC/DC The Savage Tale of the First Standards War. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006.
Brandon, Craig. The Electric Chair An Unnatural American History. Boston: McFarland & Company, 1999.
Essig, Mark. Edison & the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death. United States: Walker & Company, 2005.
Richard., Moran,. Executioner's current Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and the invention of the electric chair. New York: A.A. Knopf, 2002.
Warhol. 1 June 2009 <http://www.warhol.org/>.
Reference:
"Alfred P. Southwick, MDS, DDS: dental practitioner, educator and originator of electrical executions." PubMD.gov. Nov. 2000. U.S. National Library of Medicine. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11806253?dopt=Abstract>.
"THE ELECTRIC CHAIR - Crime Library on truTV.com." TruTV.com: Not Reality. Actuality. Apr. 2009 <http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/not_guilty/chair/1.html>.
"Death and Money - The History of the Electric Chair." Inventors. Apr. 2009 <http://inventors.about.com/od/hstartinventions/a/Electric_Chair.htm>.
Wikipedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_chair>.
Pictures:
"Andy 's Electric Chair." Warhol. 10 June 2009 <http://www.warhol.org/education/electric_chair.html>.
“Robert G. Elliott, the official Sing Sing executioner - Crime Library on truTV.com." TruTV.com: Not Reality. Actuality. 10 June 2009 <http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/gangsters_outlaws/cops_others/robert_elliott/6.html>.
"George Westinghouse: Biography from Answers.com." Answers.com - Online Dictionary, Encyclopedia and much more. 10 June 2009 <http://www.answers.com/topic/george-westinghouse>.
"Electric chair: Definition from Answers.com." Answers.com - Online Dictionary, Encyclopedia and much more. 10 June 2009 <http://www.answers.com/topic/electric-chair>.